


Shadows of Ashes

by VivWiley



Category: The X-Files
Genre: En Ami ep tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 04:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivWiley/pseuds/VivWiley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is the price of betrayal calculable?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows of Ashes

I've made only two mistakes in my life. The second mistake was using Dana Scully to get the alien genetics data from Cobra.

Regret is an unfamiliar emotion for me. I learned a lifetime or two ago that it gains you nothing, and may cost you a great deal if it slows your reflexes, or causes you to pause at just the wrong moment. Regret wastes time in a life of far too few hours. So, I long since gave it up.

And yet, here I sit in the near dark of this room, the fire burning quietly, a glass of excellent burgundy in my hand, and I cannot bring myself to celebrate my victory. I am adrift in unfamiliar seas--lost in the strange sensation that something eluded me when I wasn't looking. Except that I am quite sure I never turned my gaze away. 

I sit here with the disk that has answers beyond any imagined questions. I sit here knowing that a danger has been eliminated--that stupid scientist is no longer likely to suddenly fall prey to his guilty conscience. God spare me all such idealistic fools. Do they truly imagine that mankind is wise enough to handle these sorts of secrets? 

Did Cobra ever really believe that he could save the world? Perhaps he did. It is, ultimately, of no consequence. He is dead and I have the data.

Loose ends have been neatly tied up. My erstwhile assistant is also quite dead. There was a certain satisfaction in putting a bullet in his precise if unimaginative little brain. He must have expected it. Or, maybe he didn't. He followed his orders, and undoubtedly thought he would receive his just reward. In his profession, a swift and almost painless death might be reward enough. It is of no matter--he was simply one more foot soldier lost in the grander cause. 

And yet, and yet...tonight I do not feel that familiar glow of accomplishment. That sure sense of knowledge of my own superiority. I am still convinced of my rightness, and I understand my pivotal role in the game better than ever, but there is something lacking tonight.

The fire sparks and pops--another fire amid so many others. 

I have burned papers and I have burned cities. Ashes and cinders are the shadows I leave behind me. Nothing transforms or destroys quite the way flames do, and yet, strangely, I have walked through all those flames, and the soot has left no permanent mark on me. I have, over the years, become grayer perhaps. But so have we all. It is only the process of aging.

Staring at these particular flames, on this night, it comes to me that perhaps I miscalculated. I touched Dana with the flame of betrayal, and I fear I have marred her. I did not mean to.

Everyone has their price. Everyone can be bought. You simply have to raise the stakes high enough, put pressure on the right parts of a person's soul, and you can own them. Anyone can be owned. Offer even a righteous man the chance to save the world in return for the "victimless crime" of a small personal betrayal, and eventually you will have him. And there are very few truly righteous men left.

I had her. For a brief moment I held her in the palm of my hand and then I let her go. Or perhaps she left of her own accord--suddenly awake to the mistake she made. It does not matter how she left. What matters is that she came at all. That she allowed herself to be bought, however temporarily.

I needed her to come with me. I needed her unwitting help to win this round of the game, to gain this one more prize. I have to confess that I also wanted her to come with me. Wanted to affirm for myself that I could buy her, that I understood her well enough to offer her the asking price of her soul. And although she got me what I needed, I am startled to realize that I regret it. 

She is corrupted now. I found the pressure point of her heart, and I pushed at it until she snapped. She came with me to an undefined location. She had to place her trust in me. She lied to her partner. She broke the rules. And although she is no stranger to rule-breaking, this was different. This had the scent of the forbidden, the taint of evil, and still she followed me.

They will not be the same after this. One of the gifts I gave Dana on this strange journey was my insight into her heart--her inability to love Mulder fully, even though it seems only too plain to me that her soul is crying out for her to do just that. She believes she is incapable of withstanding the force of that passion, I think. She is, of course, wrong. If she manages to realize her error some day, it will change them both.

It is of little consequence if she does, though. Knowing her and Mulder as I do, I think they'll bury this incident deep beneath their respective surfaces. It will lie there, a mutant, dormant seed that will spring to life some fine day--distorted recollections of betrayals and lies. Never mind that she tried to communicate with him; he, after all, received none of those tapes. Never mind that she acted for what she thought would be the good of mankind. Later, all they will remember is that she ran from him, and he did not, could not follow.

Were I different man, I might imagine that this incident will actually bring them closer. But I am an old realist. And I know the ways of solitary hearts. 

I have marked Dana Scully - changed her in ways that are invisible to the naked eye, but the marks of which she will see in the mirror of her soul. For a brief moment she sympathized with the devil. A brief moment of communion over fine food and excellent wine. Surrounded by carefully muted ambiance, wearing the dress I had selected for her, she believed me. She believed in me. It is not something she does lightly, and it will be hard for her to go back.

From now on, she will be forced to consider me a little differently. The next time I approach her, and there will be a next time, she will have to stop and think before she turns on her heel and walks away. She can no longer regard me in just the two dimensions of good and evil. She will have to think of me as...human. As a man who is torn by complex motives. As someone who is lonely.

Much of what I told her was true, of course, to an extent. I served her the truth liberally mixed with lies, the same potent cocktail I have used to keep Mulder intoxicated for years. The chips and the technology on that disk do have the power to eradicate human disease. But, of course, they can also be used to cause all disease. Any disease. Any time, anywhere. It is unimaginable power, even to me, who can imagine a great deal of power.

With the broadcast of a few simple commands, I could cause an Ebola outbreak in Manhattan. Typhoid Fever could sweep Los Angeles. Instantly. It is a horrendous, god-like power. It is...tempting. 

With this technology I would have more than enough of a bargaining chip to begin rebuilding it all. To begin amassing the sort of power and control that matter. A few well-placed words to appropriate government officials, a well-placed demonstration or two, and there is literally nothing I couldn't command.

And yet, the strangest revelation is that I told the truth in the one instance where she probably most suspects me of trying to manipulate her. I am a lonely man. It surprised me to hear those words coming out of my mouth. It was not, in fact, what I had intended to say. But hearing those words, I understood that, for the first time in more years than I can remember, I was speaking the unvarnished truth.

Her eyes are....well, metaphors fail me. Suffice it say that I have never really doubted why it is that Mulder has kept her so closely by his side all this time. But now I understand a different dimension to his need for her. It is not simply that she is a flame. It is such a cliche, and yet apt. She is warm, compassionate, true. What I saw in her face when I unthinkingly revealed my soul is that she is, at her core, a true doctor, a healer.

I found myself on my feet, blindly striding out of the restaurant, ostensibly to smoke a cigarette, but in truth to get away from her. To get away from what I was trying to make her into.

I have come close to owning the world, in my own small way. I have consorted with the true masters of the shadows. I have seen them die. I know the hidden levers of secrets and power. I have come to see that there is nothing that cannot and may not be used for the ends of power.

But I made a mistake. I should not have brought Scully into this. Not like this. Not now. There is little time left, and there should be, at the end, something left untouched. It should have been her.

So, I find myself standing on the dock, tossing the disk into the water. A tribute to a healer. I am drowning the promised cure, but I am also obliterating unbelievable destruction. Perhaps it is not exactly redemption, but maybe it makes me slightly less of who she thinks I am. 

She will not ever know of this gesture, of course, but that makes it more worthwhile. True nobility is always humble.

Walking back into the house, I push my hands deep in my pockets, an early spring chill in the air causing a faint shiver to wrack me. An unexpected object catches my fingers--it is the envelope with the tape that she tried to mail Mulder from that gas station. I had forgotten that I had taken it from Guenther's coat pocket before I pushed him into the river. I wondered why he had kept it, instead of simply destroying it. I wonder, now, why I have kept it.

Perhaps, on my way back to town tomorrow, I will pass a mailbox....

FIN

We are not who we are...

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The X-Files, Smoking Man, Mulder and Scully are the property of Carter et al at 1013. No infringement is intended, no profit was made.


End file.
